"U-uwah! A monster!"
The one who let out that sad cry was not a villager. It was me. While we checked the plains near Lila Village, a Silver Wolf jumped out at us again from the grass.
I shook all over like jelly while Lily aimed her holy staff at the beast.
"Holy Seal: Cell Hyperactivation (Heal Blast)."
The Silver Wolf sat inside a ring of light, and then with a Pop! it burst apart into a gross spray like a dirty firework.
Lily gave me a cold empty stare, the kind you give trash after you take it out.
"Trash... I mean, what are you doing, Lord Haruya?"
Did she just call me trash under her breath? Good, that means my worth is dropping fast, so I should keep acting as sad as I can.
"Tahaha, of course I freak out when a monster jumps out like that."
"Surely you would not fall behind a Silver Wolf, Lord Haruya."
"I'm no good with surprises. I take forever to check a dungeon before I clear it, which is why I run solo."
"Hah, is that so."
"Still, Lily, you are cute and you are strong too."
I flashed her a loose grin. We had come to check the plains near Lila Village, and monsters kept jumping out at us for some time now. Lily looked tired of it too, and she had started to move first in each fight.
Her long lashes shook a little.
"I trained hard so that I might shield Lord Hero."
I know. When I met her in my past life, she was already stronger than me, and by the end of our road she could fight up front and guard the back too as a top priestess.
Still, what I saw now was far from that end point. Her aim with Heal Blast, her steps in a fight, and her sense for monsters all felt rough. I had come back from death with my stats intact, but her strength felt rewound to an early point.
It had even taken her a while to heal the cut on my arm. Even so, she was well above Silver-Iron rank, and it looked like she had joined the Adventurers Guild not long ago.
"Hehe, I am counting on you big time."
"Is that truly fine? Do you not wish to make a name for yourself as an adventurer?"
"I just want to earn enough to live on."
"For your dream harem, I suppose."
"Yeah, that's right. Still, I really am scared, you know."
I glanced over at Lila Village nearby. The villagers stood in one straight line like a wall and watched us with fixed smiles. It was creepy, though they showed no sign of grabbing us.
"Could they be testing how strong we are?"
"Maybe. I have no clue, though."
Probably the monsters that jumped us were sent to test our strength. I let Lily fight alone in part to see their hand, and she seemed to sense that and did not push too hard either.
Lily looked sideways at the far too odd villagers.
"Our check is far from complete, but it should be enough to move the Knights Order."
"Oh? Should we go back and report? There are only two of us, after all."
"...I believe that would be best."
She looked a bit unhappy. With this much oddness, the Knights Order would have cause to move. Tell the guild and leave the rest to them, and my trip home with her view of me still low would be perfect.
But the villagers with fixed smiles looked ruled by one will. This smelled like a dark rite. Either the villagers had touched something foul, or something foul pulled strings from the dark. If the whole village sat under its hold, the rite was near its last step, and trouble could break out while we walked home, so the timing felt tight.
Lily had no memory of our old road, so she lacked that field sense and had not thought that far ahead. I was no Hero now, but still I could not leave this alone.
"...Nah, that will not do."
I gave a slack grin and Lily blinked.
"This is just my gut, but heading back now feels risky, like a tingly warning in my skin."
"A tingly warning, you say?"
"Yeah, a tingling instinct, if you will."
Lily smiled just enough to see.
"Understood. I shall send a letter to town, and we shall stay the night in Lila Village."
She kept watching me as if to probe me more. I wondered if it would all go smoothly.
A large inn in Lila Village that served as a tavern too took us in even with no notice.
"What! You wish to stay at the inn of this plainly not odd village? Of course! Please stay and see how plain it is!" the clerk cried.
I had a bad feeling about getting home safe. First we sat down to fill our bellies, so we took dinner in the tavern.
A smiling clerk pushed the Lila Village special called the plainly not odd menu, but I turned it down with a polite shake of the head since no one knew what sat in it.
Lily and I faced each other at a table and ate from our field rations. The tavern buzzed with noise while villagers at other tables stared hard at us with smiles.
I had no hunger, though eating when you can is the hard rule for adventurers. I set the packed meat on a plate and poured on a lot of my own thick sauce, the kind they said ruined skin and health in my past life. While I cut it clean with knife and fork and ate, Lily stared at me and left her bread untouched.
"What's up? Did you fall for me?"
She would not force food rules on me now that I was no Hero, as she once did.
"I only thought how neatly you eat."
"Is that odd?"
"It speaks of good breeding. Are you by chance a young noble?"
"...I am an orphan. A loud old lady next door beat manners into me."
"Then you met a fine person."
Lily taught me herself, in truth. I thought of eating like a slob, but the habit sat deep in my body by now.
She kept staring at my odd way of eating with her bread still untouched, and it irked me to be pried at from one side.
"You can dig at me all you want, but nothing will come out."
"I am not digging at you."
"Want me to tell you of my home? I am a true orphan, with no lies in it."
Even after I came back from death, I swam the great sea to fight the Demon King with no one seeing me. Because of that, I wiped away each trace of the Hero.
Her face did not shift, but she did not look pleased. Should I poke at her side a bit?
"You look like you seek the Hero, but what good is seeking one who is gone?"
"Do you think so?"
"You have no witness tales, right? He may have tied with the Demon King, or the Demon King may have died on his own, like slipping in the tub and cracking his head with a thud."
"Impossible. Demon King Chronova would never fall on his own."
"Well, no use brooding on it. The world turns even with no Hero."
I said it in a soft voice. I wished she would live more free, but Lily set her face hard.
"The Hero is light, and the truth of this world, Lord Haruya."
With that, she started at last to eat her bread in small bites. She still worshipped the Hero as always.
Though what she loved was not me as the Hero, but the idea of the Hero itself. Most Great Goddess believers leaned that way, but in Lily it ran near worship.
I never said no to it, and we never came to grasp each other in my past life. Why did she yearn for the Hero so hard?
Night came at last. I sat in a chair in a room on the second floor of the inn.
When the moon climbs, the dark grows thick. If something hid here, hiding the marks of its rite would grow hard. If it meant to move, it would move then, so I had told Lily this as talk heard from another.
So that the villagers would not mark us, we waited in our own rooms apart, but I thought I might talk with Lily a bit more.
In my past life we ended as Hero and guide. Now that I was no Hero, she would not hold back oddly with me.
I might step in a touch more. If she hates me as harem trash, that is fine too.
I stood with my gear still on and went to the next room. I walked soft down the hall. From her room came a faint rustle of cloth.
Was she at prayer? She did that often in my past life too. I opened the door with no sound so I would not break it.
"Hah... hah..."
Lily lay on the bed. Her pale skin burned red as if with fever while she writhed short of breath.
A light sweat stood on her while she bit her lip as if it felt sweet, and her thin fingers slid between her thighs.
Her young face still held a pure cast, yet heat had turned it into the face of a woman.
She moved her hand without rest, jerked with a sharp twitch, and let slip a sweet cry.
"Lord Herooo... ah..."
I stood stuck in the door and saw my old friend in the act to the end.
Hah!? W-was she mastur-
Trivia:
1. Haruya deliberately tanks his own reputation on purpose, treating Lily's contempt as a success condition rather than a failure.
2. Lily's strength has rewound along with her memories even though Haruya's own stats were untouched by his death-and-return, hinting the rewind treats the two of them by different rules.
3. Lily's moan calls out to the Hero, not to Haruya, which quietly undercuts his plan to get closer to her as an ordinary man.
Notes:
• Haruya - Solo adventurer in the trading city of Gran Neal, formerly the Holy Hero who defeated the Demon King Chronova. Maintains a bronze-rank adventurer status deliberately to avoid responsibility and attention. Slim-built young man in plain breast armor with a longsword and a large hip pouch of adventuring tools. Harbors a singular life goal of losing his virginity at a high-class brothel and building a harem, a dream he loudly declared at guild registration, earning him infamy among female adventurers while being well-liked by male adventurers for his candid lewd talk. Secretly a returnee from death who deliberately destroyed his hero-route reputation.
• Demon King Chronova - A powerful demon lord who fell from grace while serving Goddess Flora. Attempted to plunge the world into darkness. Bound his soul to the Dark Temple to drag the hero down with him in death. Speaks with archaic, grandiose diction. Ruler of the Dark Temple who wears high priest-like garments. Possesses defensive and offensive magic including Chronowall and Chronosfang. Dignified yet easily flustered, particularly by the intruder's nudity. Values formality and tradition.